Thanksgiving is over, but hopefully thanksgiving will continue.

My wish for Thanksgiving break was that, instead of weighing in on it myself, it would be enough for my columnists to prod your consciences for overdoing Christmas and forgetting Thanksgiving and spur you into actions that were actually consistent with your annual sentimentalism and charity instead of running the opposite direction to a flood of materialism.

Every year we students leave this campus and Ames for home for up to a week. We do so ostensibly so we can return home, spend time with our families and reflect on how easy we have it here in America or be grateful for the blessings in which we partake. That week includes one day, a Thursday, when everyone else in the country is (supposed to be) doing the same thing.

We cook enormous fattened birds for hours, bring out the cranberry sauce, mash pounds of potatoes, and bake casseroles and cook stuffing and, in my family’s case, try a bottle of just about every kind of wine we can find. And that’s the tip of the iceberg, as far as the list of Thanksgiving food goes. Each family has its own traditions and preferences. Each remakes the holiday in its own fashion.

Maybe that’s where we went wrong: Making thanksgiving (yes, that lower-case “t” is intentional) a holiday. Holidays, as you may know, are specially appointed days with their own special significance.

Giving thanks is important. Yet we have forgotten entirely that part of the day. For us, it is an opportunity to gorge ourselves on good food and wake up early in the morning to seek out the best deal.

We’re doing it wrong. Where is the sense in devoting a whole day to quaint family get-togethers if we’re just going to use it to prepare ourselves for a day of hectic midnight shopping? What’s the point in deluding ourselves one day that we are good, grateful people if we intend, that very day, on going out the next morning and rushing, pushing, shoving and swearing at each other all so we can save a few dollars?

Just like clockwork on Black Friday, news headlines appear in force that read something like “Black Friday madness: Shopper pepper sprays crowd to get deal at L.A. Wal-Mart, shootings in S.C.” Just like clockwork, Lexus’ annual commercials featuring luxury cars gifted with bow ties air on TV stations. And predictably, ABC and other networks advertise all the Christmas-themed movies they’ll be showing until Christmas Day.

We’re ridiculous. If the Republicans are right and jihadists want to kill us all, it’s no wonder that they do — we’re the most conceited, selfish, materialistic country on earth. If they’re right about the Socialists and Communists wanting to end the United States and capitalism as we know it, it’s no wonder they do — we have decided that money is more important than living out our ideals in the real world.

And the example this great-bargain chasing sets for children is awful, too. Our cultural inconstancy will kill us. What’s the use of teaching moderation, self-control and hard honest work if we go out the next day, drunk with visions of how great it would be to keep up with the Joneses and compete in a sometimes physical struggle for the latest toy?

In our relentlessly fast and furious quest for instant gratification, we moved on to Christmas right after Halloween. Maybe we should just get rid of Thanksgiving. You can’t dress it up like you can with Christmas and make it about wrapping up the latest gadgets, putting bows on them, and wildly opening them on the appointed day. You can’t dress up on it like Halloween, where everyone who participates tries to find the most flattering, obnoxious or revealing costume to wear.

We have forgotten Thanksgiving — and it really is the last holiday whose meaning we have forgotten — hook, line and sinker. We kick off a month of Christmas the very next day (or at Toys R Us and Wal-Mart that same night). At least with Thanksgiving maybe we’ll stop pretending to celebrate the day instead of losing the message and keeping the farce.